My first and strongest motivation in writing a book about the life of Georgiana Molloy was to share as widely as possible the full story and the true facts. Selling so many copies, so quickly, since the book was published in March was a wonderful surprise and hearing from so many readers who’ve enjoyed the book has been fantastic.

But self-publishing has its limits and with an increasing number of requests for copies from bookshops in other states, and from readers in the UK and US, we realised that we couldn’t manage to meet demands on our own and I decided to look for a publisher. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind journey…

First, I was signed up by a literary agent who’s turned out to be the best agent I could have wished for, Martin Shaw of the Alex Adsett Agency. He returned my first email within hours and was excited enough about the book to pitch it to major publishers within a couple of weeks. Then he guided me with wisdom and sensitivity through the process when I was faced with more than one publishing offer and a decision to make.

Pan Macmillan will be publishing the book next year under their Picador imprint and after meeting my publisher, Alex Craig, for the first time last week in Sydney, I’m absolutely sure that Georgiana’s story is in the safest of hands to move on and travel more widely than Mike and I could ever have taken it on our own. It’s an overwhelming privilege to be working now with an agent and a publisher who bring such knowledge, experience and creativity to what’s been a very personal project until now. All I have to do is learn to let go – and try to focus on the book I’m writing now!

And here’s a photo of a very happy moment: signing the publishing contract in the Reading Room of the Battye Library in Perth (where so much of the research was done) with Georgiana’s great-great grandson Patrick Richardson-Bunbury, to whom the book’s dedicated. He signed as the witness on the contract.